Andrew; There are several ways to copy a hard drive. it depends on the relative sizes of the old and new drive. If the new drive is bigger, there usually isn't a problem. Unfortunately, you can't just copy the files.
BUT; it is very likely there isn't anything wrong with your drive! If there is enough free space, the simplest solution is:
- BACKUP ALL THE FILES ON THE HARD DRIVE!
- BACKUP ALL THE FILES ON THE HARD DRIVE!
- BACKUP ALL THE FILES ON THE HARD DRIVE!
- Run a full check disk on the drive.
- Run The Defragment program on the drive.
Notice how many times I said to backup the drive??? It's that important!
Both EaseUS and CloneZilla (free) can copy hard drive to hard drive.
Laptops and drives pose a special problem. You need to connect BOTH drives to the same machine at the same time. You can connect some drives via a USB connection and drive handler
like this one You also need to verify with the manual or manufacturer the largest HD that the machine can handle. This is important with laptops as the controller in the laptop may not support drives larger than "X".
Cautions: Don't do anything to the old drive for several months after the copy. Immediately after the copy test all programs to verify proper operations.